Just the Way You Are
by LoveandLearn
Summary: Inspired by the Song Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars. It's basically how Derek felt about Addison in the past and how he feels after all the years they've been together. ONE-SHOT!


This was inspired by the Song Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars. It's NOT a song fic. It's basically how Derek felt about Addison in the past and how he feels after all the years they've been together.

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><p><em>Derek held two trays <em>_of cafeteria food as walked toward an empty table with Addison following close beside him. "Everybody's probably calling me a fat-ass." He whispered after getting a few stares for having two trays. "That's what I get for being a gentleman." _

_Addison laughed and helped him put the trays down on the table before they took seats across from one another. Addison opened the plastic lid covering her bland looking salad while Derek unwrapped what looked like a day old sandwich. _

"_My favorite part of being an intern and working around the clock is the fact that we have the cafeteria to cater such amazing meals for us." He said sarcastically, making a disgusted face after taking one bite. "This tastes like a dog peed on it. How's the salad?"_

"_Ummm…" she paused to chew the food she had in her mouth. "I think they forgot to put dressing on it. It's just lettuce." _

"_Sounds fantastic." he said with as much an unnatural amount of enthusiasm. _

_Addison laughed and let the fork slip out of her hand and into the plastic container. "I think everyone here is thinking' Who is that high idiot and I hope he's not a doctor for my whatever's case.'" _

"_We are off this weekend. We are going to go eat a steak that costs 90 bucks. We may not be able to afford that with what we're making but what the hell, it's not like we do it often. We need someone that doesn't taste like grass." _

"_Okay." She agreed with a nod. Her 25 million dollar has been set completely aside after paying off student loans. They agreed to live like any other intern (minus the debt for loans.) They had a one bedroom apartment close to the hospital they worked for, they had one Honda rather than using her money to buy one BMW for him and a Benz for her. Addison even cut back on shopping to prove that she wasn't as materialistic as Derek's family thought she was. _

"_I'm bored." He decided after two minutes of silence. "Entertain me."_

"_Okay, hypothetically speaking let's say we've been married for like…ten years and I suddenly drop dead for some random reason. Who's the first person you bang?" _

"_What?" he exclaimed, the Coke he had been sipping was dripping out of his nose causing her to laugh uncontrollably. "Why would you even ask me something like that?"_

"_I'm curious." She replied, stabbing a few more dry leaves of lettuce to eat. _

"_Umm…like a normal person or can it be someone famous."_

"_Anyone you want." She replied while chewing. _

"_Halle Berry." He decided after a few seconds of thought. "And if she's busy I'll settle for Angelina Jolie."_

_Addison chuckled and looked up only to discover her was serious. "You call that settling?" _

"_Well considering that neither of them could measure up to you that would be settling." He asked with a sly smile. _

"_Ass kiss." She shook her head and grabbed his bottle of Coke for a sip. _

"_What about you? Why would you wanna get down at dirty with? Tim Allen or Arnold Schwarzenegger?"_

"_Wait, I didn't give you an option I let you decide." She replied, pointing her fork at him disapprovingly. _

"_Your problem. Since we're being hypothetical then in my case these are the only two guys left alive." He answered with a smirk. _

_She shook her head and laugh. "At least it's not between Gary Coleman and Sonny Bono." _

"_You have the cutest laugh." He replied unexpectedly. _

"_My mom says I laugh like a hyena." _

"_Nope, you don't. My sister, Nancy does. You sound adorable. I love it. I don't think I've ever told you that. It's part of the reason I fell in love with you. You've got an amazing sense of humor and I'll never get tired of that laugh." _

Callie took her fifth shot of vodka then looked at Miranda who was slowly sipping wine. "You're complaining about the fact that your husband obsessively showers?" she asked with an exaggerated huff. "George clips his toenails in bed! It's the most disgusting habit."

"I didn't say Tucker's showers were a bad habit. I was just saying it's annoying." She replied. "You wanna know what his bad habit is? Burping during sex. It's absolutely the most disgusting thing ever. I would prefer sleeping in toenails then having someone burp in my ear."

Addison laughed, slowly sipping her martini while listening to the two woman complain about their husbands.

Miranda glared in her direction when she heard her laughing. "Oh, come on. I'm sure your husband has some terrible habits too. Don't sit there and pretend we're the only ones with disgusting husbands."

Addison shook her head. She took another sip of her martini and looked up to see them still staring at her. "What?" she asked innocently.

"You don't expect us to believe that, do you? Everyone has nasty habits. You can't expect us to believe McDreamy is perfect." Callie replied.

"He's not perfect, he's got many, _many _flaws but I haven't noticed any nasty habits."

"Lies." Miranda accused, the alcohol from the two previous glasses of wine obviously having loosened her up from the uptight private woman she usually is. "You have been married longer than me and Callie combined. You _have _to have noticed!"

"She has?" Callie asked, tipping her head to the side. "I've been married for 6 months, Miranda just celebrated ten years. You're going onto 12 years…God, that's a long time. You're old."

"Thanks." Addison said dryly. "I'm three years older than you, Callie." She informed then turned to Miranda. "And I'm less than a year older than you. It's not my fault you all weren't smart enough to skip 3 grades and take college classes in high school. I was _way _ahead hence the reason why I'm your superior."

"Showoff." Callie mumbled, throwing back another shot. "If you don't think of a bad habit I will tell you what I saw George doing…and trust me, you don't want to know."

"He doesn't do anything!" Addison exclaimed. "You want me to be honest? Fine! He's not perfect. I'm not perfect. Our marriage sucks. We go home and go to sleep. We don't have enough interaction for me to see bad habits."

"And here is where the evening takes a depressing turn." Miranda mumbled.

"Once right after we first moved in together during med school he called me mom." she whispered, figuring that fact would be funny enough to get them off her back.

"What?" Callie asked, her Beer chaser spraying out of her mouth as she laughed hysterically.

"Please say it was during sex." Miranda prodded. "That would make me feel so much better about my burping husband."

Addison laughed and shook her head. "No, sorry. He was sick and I made him tea and I was trying to wake him up to drink it and he said, 'Not now, Mom.' Then his eyes burst open and he spent ten minutes apologizing to me."

Miranda rolled her eyes and finished the last of the wine in her class. "I WIN! Okay? The man burps in my ear!"

Both Callie and Addison laughed and nodded simultaneously. "You win." The said in unison.

Derek sat at the bar a few feet away and the only thing he could think was _Was her laugh always that annoying?_

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><p>"<em>I don't understand why I have to come with you to your sister's wedding. I've only seen her like two or three times." Addison mumbled while drawing a line of liquid eyeliner over her lash line. "And to be quite honest, I don't think your mom wants me there. I don't think she likes me." <em>

_Derek rolled his eyes, "Who cares what my mom thinks? My mom isn't the one that's going to be waking up next to you, I am. And I want you there with me because you're my __fiancé and I want to show you off to my entire family. I wanna dance with you partially because it's a good excuse to hold you inappropriately close in public." _

_Addison stood from her vanity table in a bathrobe. She held up two dresses in front of him, "Which one?" _

"_The black one; there is less of it." Derek replied. with a smirk. _

"_Derek, seriously!" She exclaimed, hitting him as hard as possible on his upper arm. "I don't want to look like some spoiled rich kid, that was the quote your youngest sister used, right?"_

"_You're not going to look like a spoiler rich kid." he assured her, moving closer to trail kiss from her collar bone up to her ear. "The only thing people will be saying about you is 'How is the poor girl not repulsed by Derek?'" _

_Addison pushed his face away from her chest and looked at the two dresses she had lying on their bed. She paused before walking into her closet to pull out another two dresses. "Seriously, Derek, help me!"_

"_Addison, who cares? We both know you are going to look amazing in anything you wear. Even if you showed up to that wedding in that robe you'd have more attention than my fugly sister in her weird poofy dress." _

"_Somehow I doubt that." Addison whispered as she held up the different dresses to her body. _

"_You suck at taking compliments which obviously means you were not compliments enough while growing up." he said, sounding a lot like the therapist her parents hired for in high school. "But don't worry, I take it upon myself it fix that problem. When I tell you you're going to look breathtaking in anything then I mean it. I'm not lying to get you to leave me alone. Okay?"_

"_Okay." she whispered with a slight nod of her head. _

"_You look gorgeous. Your hair may have curlers in it and you may have one eye with make up and one eye without but you really do look unbelievable beautiful." he paused, watching her while she looked at him unsurely. "This is the part where you say 'thank you' and kiss me." _

_Addison laughed, tossing the dress draped on her arm onto the bed. She took a few steps closer to him and wrapped her arms around his neck. "Thank you." she whispered with her forehead against his. _

"Hurry up, Addie. We're going to be late. The hospital raised enough for the clinical trial Richard and I had developed. This could change our lives, Addison, it could change hundreds of thousands of lives. Millions, even. Everyone with brain tumors can benefit from this and we're going to be late because you're taking you're taking your sweet ass time."

"Well then help me choose a damn dress." Addison exclaimed from the bathroom while she clipped back the top layers of her blow dried hair. "I narrowed it down to the ones on the bed but now I'm stuck."

"You couldn't think of this sooner?" Derek replied in an annoyed tone.

"Derek, you told me about this benefit this morning. It's not like I had time to go out to by a dress special for tonight." she answered as she walked out of the bathroom in full hair and make-up. "The red one? No, the red hair would clash with a red dress. The dark blue." she decided, holding the dress to her body in front of the one thin full length mirror they had in the trailer. "What do you think?"

"It's fine. Put it on, do your make-up and let's go."

"I already did it." she leaned in closer to the mirror to inspect the her make-up.

"Oh, you did? It just that your eyes look kinda, like you haven't slept in a while." he raised his brow while looking at her reflection in the mirror. "You want to cover that up or something?"

"I've slept plenty, Derek! That's the make-up. It's the new Smokey-eye thing and I think I pulled it off pretty well." she turned away from the mirror and replaced the towel wrapped around her body with the strapless dark blue fitting gown. "Thoughts?" she asked, inspecting the final product in the mirror.

"It's fine." he mumbled, pulling on his suit jacket. _Fine- _that was the best compliment she had gotten from him in months. And sadly that was enough to satisfy her.

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><p><em>Addison lowered her head onto Derek's shoulder and sighed tiredly. He lowered the champagne flute from his lips and wrapped an arm around her back. "You okay?" he asked, his voice sounding slightly concerned. <em>

"_I'm fine." She assured with a big smile. "I'm just tired. I was so excited that I couldn't sleep last night. I finally fell asleep at like 5:30 and my mom showed up at 7 banging on the door." _

"_You woke up at 7?" he exclaimed with a laugh. "I was asleep until 1 pm. Slept through the hang-over that came courtesy of the bachelor party. Woke up, gelled the hair, put on the tux, I made the limo stop by a Starbucks on the way to the church because I really needed a muffin. It was a pretty awesome morn…er, Afternoon." _

"_Lucky you. I had my make-up done twice. I cried it off the first time." She informed him. "This wedding stuff is all very taxing." _

"_Why were you crying? Last minute cold feet?" Derek asked._

"_No, my mom just said some typical Bizzy things about social class and other things and I got a little emotional. I would tell you but I would probably end up crying and that photographs has his lens glued to us. I don't even notice the flashing anymore." She replied. "Besides, I don't want to ruin my make-up in the middle of my own wedding reception."_

_Derek laughed causing Addison to lift her head from his shoulder to give him her signature look with her raised brow. He looked into her eyes and trailed her jaw line with his index finger. He raised her chin and softly kissed her lips, obviously madly in love. When he pulled away he noticed the unforgettable smile on her face. "There's the smile I love." He whispered when she rested her head on his shoulder again. "I swear your smile outshines the brightest star." He look down only to see the smile grow. "Nevermind, I think you can put the sun out of business." _

Addison walked into the waiting room of the surgical with Derek following right behind her. Both reflexively pulled off their surgical caps as they walked toward the single mother of their 2 month old patient. "Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd." The woman greeted as she took up in with visible concern shining in her eyes.

Addison had been the first physician to respond to the page when the infant was brought into the ER after a terrible car accident. A drunk driver had crashed right into the back door of passenger side, right where it's recommended the car seat should be placed. She discovered the baby had suffered damage to his spine which could only be fixed with a highly risky surgery.

"Is he okay? Did he make it? Did he not make it? Is that way neither of you have said a word yet?" she asked quickly, her voice already breaking off with her tears building up.

Addison quickly grabbed the woman's arm in reassurance. "No, Jill…Stop crying and listen to me, okay?" Addison said softly, taking a seat on the chair beside the woman. "He's fine. He made it through the surgery, Dr. Shepherd was able to repair the damage caused by the crash." She informed her patient's mother with a smile.

"So the surgery went well and my son is going to be alright?" Jill asked, this time looking at Derek for an answered.

Derek cleared his throat, looking at the smile on both women's faces. "He did make it out of surgery. Everything went fine. But post-op is critical with spinal surgery so we're going to keep here for a few days."

"Thank you, Dr. Shepherd. I know you didn't agree with Dr. Montgomery-Shepherd about doing the procedure but I'm glad she talked you into it. You saved my son."

Addison looked at Derek, smile still present on my face.

"He means everything to me. I don't know what I would do without him. You two are married, right? Do you have children? You would understand if you have children."

"We are married but we don't have children." Addison replied, looking down at the black crocs she would always wear in surgery. "Not yet." She added at the end then looked up at Derek hopefully, the smile returning to her face.

The woman returned the smile. "You'll understand exactly how grateful I am after holding your own child for the first time."

"You can go see him up in the neonatal ICU. We transferred him straight there instead of post-op." Derek told her. The woman nodded and thanked them again before leaving. Addison followed Derek back toward the nurse's station to pick up their separate charts for the next patients they would have to see.

"Seriously, Derek, thank you for agreeing to do the surgery even though you didn't agree that it was the best choice." She told him, giving him a small grateful smile.

"Stop smiling." He finally snapped.

"Excuse me?" she replied. She figured she had to have heard him incorrectly. Why would he tell her not to smile? That was harsh, even for someone as cold as Derek had been lately.

"You're always smiling. It's starting to annoy me. You gave that woman false hope. That kid could die because of post-op 're a surgeon, not an overly enthusiastic model. Smiling is not part of the job."

"What the hell does that have anything to do with anything?" she snapped back but unlike him she wasn't able to contain herself to a whisper. He walked away without answering and left her thinking _You used to love my smile._

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><p><em>There was one word to describe how Derek felt about his soon-to-be fiance: amazing. She was absolutely amazing. The only problem was that she did not understand just how amazing she would.<em>

"_Marry me." he said during a sunset walk in a snow covered section of Central Park. She turned to him and looked into his eyes almost as if she thought he had lost his sanity. "Don't look at me like that, Addison, I'm serious. I want to marry you. I want to be with you forever. Marry me...please."_

"_Derek, this is insane. You don't want to marry me. You've got so much going for 're gorgeous and brilliant, you deserve someone so much better than me. I'm...awkward and stubborn." _

"_There is no one better then you, Addison."_

"_Everyone is better then me, Derek. You are obviously blind if you can't see that."_

"_You are amazing and you need to understand that. You are the most amazing person I have ever met in my entire life. You are the person I want t be with until I die. I want to wake up every single morning with you in my arms, I want to go to sleep every night with you cuddled against me. If I have you every day for the rest of my life then I could never ask for anything else. You are everything I need."_

"_How can you be so sure?"_

"_Because you're amazing and it's just that simple. I love you exactly the way you are and I've never met someone that I can same the same about." he answered with a smirk. "Just trust me, okay? You and I will be the happiest couple there ever was and that ever will be. Okay? All you need to do is trust me and say yes." _

"_Yes." _

Now the only thing that Derek saw when he looked at Addison was utter contempt. He hated every little detail of her existence.

"You're late." Addison informed him when he walked into the kitchen just before midnight. It was their anniversary that day, he told her he would be home in time to take her out to dinner. "I waited. I sat at a table at some upscale restaurant all alone for two hours and I waited. You didn't even bother to call and tell me you weren't coming. The waiters laughed at me, there was a bet going go see how much longer I would wait."

Derek rolled his eyes. "You are so dramatic sometimes."

"I'm not being dramatic, you stood me up! We have barely spent any time together over the last six months or so. You are always at work and when you're home you are too exhausted to do anything. And for the last few weeks you haven't even been able to look me in the eyes without glaring. Did I do something?"

"You annoy me."

Addison looked up from the spot she had been staring at on the floor.

He could see the spark of pain in her eyes but he honestly didn't care anymore. "What is it about me that annoys you?" she asked softly, her voice breaking just a little because she was fighting to keep herself from crying.

"Everything about you annoys me. You ask too many questions, you breathe too loud in your sleep, your voice gives me a headache...the whole combination, it annoys me."

"Oh..." her voice trailed off and her eyes averted back to the spot on the ground. "I'm sorry." she added, knowing her mother would kill her for not standing up for herself. She was a Forbes-Montgomery; she wasn't supposed to take shit from anyone. "You used to tell me that I'm the most amazing woman you've ever known."

"Yeah, you _used _to be_."_

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><p>The silence in the car was deafening. They had gotten stuck in unexpected traffic on the way home and Derek hadn't said a word to her since they got in the car. The radio was there to fill the silence between them. Addison had been staring out of the window, paying attention to the lyrics of the current song playing. The screen claimed it was <em>Just the Way You Are<em> by a Bruno Mars. Her first thought was who would name a child _Bruno _but that thought quickly was replaced with others while the song continued.

Suddenly Derek reached out and slapped his hand over the power button to turn off the stereo.

It startled her enough to cause her to jump slightly. She stared at him with a raised brow but didn't say anything because she knew why he did it. The silence went on for a few more minutes before she said, "You used to say all those things about me." She whispered. "You used to love me just the way I am and now…" she paused, holding back her tears with a sniffle. "Well, now you hate me."

"I don't hate you." He replied with an exacerbated sigh. "I'm tired of having this conversation with you. It's not that I don't love you, it's just….I don't love you like I used to." He said, finding himself at a lack of words to explain it better. "You're different. You've changed. I can't love you the same way considering you're like a whole new person."

"I haven't changed." She insisted. "I'm still exactly the same as I was when we met. The only difference now you love someone else for exactly who she is. You love her and you don't even try to hide it. It hurts to see the way you look at her so I created a mask to live behind so I can keep myself from getting hurt. If you remembered why you initially loved me you would have been able to see through that mask."

That next morning they went to work in separate cars. They did not see one another until Richard paged a team of surgeon's to a conference room to start going over a high profiled case. When he got to the room the only other person was Addison.

Derek decided to take the seat beside her and turned to looked at her. The first thing he noticed was her eyes. Her guard was down for once, no mask protecting her from getting hurt. He loved her eyes. "I forgot how gorgeous your eyes are." He finally whispered after another long period of silence.

"What?"

"Just accept the compliment, Addie." He replied with a barely visible smile when he remember how hard he had worked to convince her that he meant every compliment he offered. "I just, I can't believe I forgot. Maybe it's because I've been trying so hard to avoid eye contact for a very long time. But I look into your eyes now I remember spending hours trying to figure out if they're blue or green until I realized they're an amazing blend of both."

"Thank you." She whispered in response, giving him a grateful smile.

"Now that I'm paying attention, you're smile is pretty amazing too."

"Okay, now we're pushing it." She replied with a slight chuckle.

"No, we're not. I've always loved your eyes and your smile. I just haven't been paying attention to it for a while and you're right…I should have been able to see through the mask." Derek told her with a very serious look on his face. "I'm sorry I didn't pay attention enough. I'm sure I made you feel like you weren't good enough. I do love you for who you are. I just forgot how amazing you really are when the mask is gone."

"I promise to keep the mask off if you try a little harder to repair things between us."

"Okay." He agreed with a nod, dropping the conversation and a few other surgeons walked into the room.

Derek reached to out to take her hand as they were walking out to their cars after their shifts had finished. There assigned spots were right beside one another so walking her to her car felt like the right thing to do. "Do you uh…maybe wanna come with me? We can leave your car here for the night and you'll drive it home tomorrow."

"Okay." Addison agreed softly, smiling unexpectedly when he opened the door for her.

They drove in a comfortable silence, this time luckily not coming across any traffic. The radio was on in the background and Derek attention turned there when he heard the vaguely familiar voice. He listened to the song for a minute before turning to Addison. "Isn't this the same singer as the guy who sang that song?"

"Yeah, Bruno Mars." She replied after glancing at the information provide on the stereo screen. "Song's called Grenade."

"How does he know her eyes were open during the first kiss? Obviously his eyes were open too." He replied with an annoyed glance at the stereo.

Addison laughed and responded, "It's just a song, Derek. I don't think there was too much thought put into the logistics of the lyrics."

Derek shook his head. "The other one was just a song too but that one made sense." He argued. He thought it over for a few seconds then added, "Although I suppose you can't expect much from someone named Bruno."

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><p>Don't forget a Review!<p> 


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